TOADS SAID TO BE A. CURE FOB CANCER. 75 



method of curing cancers by means of toads. Several .otel- 

 ligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do, I find, give a 

 great deal of credit to what was asserted in the papers ; and 

 I myself dined with a clergyman who seemed to be persuaded 

 that what is related is matter of fact ; but, when I came to 

 attend to his account, I thought I discerned circumstances 

 which did not a little invalidate the woman's story of the 

 manner in which she came by her skill. She says of herself, 

 that, " labouring under a virulent cancer, she went to some 

 church where there was a vast crowd ; on going into a pew, 

 she was accosted by a strange clergyman, who, after express- 

 ing compassion for her situation, told her, that if she would 

 make such an application of living toads as is mentioned, she 

 would be well." Now, is it likely that this unknown gen- 

 tleman should express so much tenderness for this single 

 sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily 

 languish under this terrible disorder ? "Would he not have 

 made use of this invaluable nostrum for his own emolument? 

 or, at least, by some means of publication or other, have 

 found a method of making it public for the good of mankind? 

 In short, this woman (as it appears to me) having set up for 

 a cancer doctress, tinds it expedient to amuse the country 

 with this dark and mysterious relation. 



The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appear- 

 ance of any gills ; for want of which it is continually rising 

 to the surface of the water to take in fresh air. I opened a 

 big-bellied one, indeed, and found it full of spawn. Not that 

 this circumstance at all invalidates the assertion that they 

 are larvts ; for the larvcB of insects are full of eggs, which they 

 exclude the instant they enter their last state. The water- 

 eft is continually climbing over the brims of the vessel, 

 ^vithin which we keep it in water, and wandering away ; and 

 peuple every summer see numbers crawling out of the pools 

 where they are hatched, up the dry banks. There are 

 varieties of them differing in colour ; and some have fins up 

 their tail and back, and some have not.* 



• The fins, or membrane on the tail and back, increase greatly at the 

 of generation ; ac other times they arc hardly perceptible. — W. J. 



